Kyoto University to Install Cray XC40 Supercomputer

Today Cray announced the Company has been awarded a contract to provide a Cray XC40 supercomputer to the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics (YITP) at Kyoto University in Japan. The two-cabinet Cray XC40 system will provide the YITP user community with a supercomputer that occupies one-fourth of the physical footprint of the Institute’s previous system and a 4x improvement in overall compute performance. The liquid-cooled system will power a wide range of theoretical physics research at YITP, such as astrophysics, nuclear physics and particle physics, and will also serve as a shared supercomputing resource supporting theoretical physicists all across Japan.

Our new Cray supercomputer significantly increases our high performance computing capabilities, and is also easy-to-use and energy efficient,” said Professor Shinya Aoki. “A large scale numerical approach is becoming much more important in the field of fundamental physics and we believe this new system will contribute to the success of our researchers. The Cray system will also play an important role in our collaboration with the High Performance Computing Initiative in Japan.”

The Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics is one of the world’s premier institutions and is renowned for pioneering research in contemporary theoretical physics. The institute is named in honor of the first Japanese citizen to win the Nobel Prize, Kyoto University Professor Hideki Yukawa, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1949. In 2008, YITP’s then director, Toshihide Maskawa, was also awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.

“The researchers and scientists at YITP are performing ground breaking physics research and taking on some of the grandest challenges in the field,” said Mamoru Nakano, president of Cray Japan. “We are honored that this important research taking place at such a highly regarded institution will be done on a Cray XC40 supercomputer. We have enjoyed a strong partnership with Kyoto University, and we are pleased that our collaborative relationship will continue.”

Cray has a proud history of providing supercomputers to the diverse user community at Kyoto University. In 2011, the University’s Academic Center for Computing and Media Studies selected a Cray XE6 supercomputer and a Cray XC30 supercomputer. The new Cray XC40 system is expected to be delivered to YITP in 2015.

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